Okay, I've had it. I'm going to go out to San Diego and straighten Amos out once and for all. I just can't take it any longer. The only question is whether to do it quickly with a gun, a knife, or poison or to watch him writhe in agony as I sing. I kinda prefer the last, especially since I'll have my brother to help me and he can't sing either.

Well, darn. Today my "invisible fence" failed completely. I had the dogs out front, and Poppy started making her high-pitched ruckus when you man-handle her if she thinks she might get hurt (she never does). This attracted, out of the blue, two MORE strays (previously not seen by me) who trotted into the yard to see what the noise was. My two dogs were like bats out of hell, flying through the hot zone and dashing up the street after the two. Good thing mine are a pair--my quick thinking neighbor Gayle called Poppy over to her truck and grabbed her collar. Cinnamon saw that Poppy stopped and came back to me, and I hauled both of their doggie asses back into the yard and through the zone. Zap! I think their batteries were weak--I was trying to see how long they last before putting the next batch in. Bad me. Obviously the weak batteries didn't do the job. So I changed them when I came back and let the dogs know they were back in the hot seat.

This makes six stray dogs I've seen in the neibhborhood in less than a week. I think someone must be dumping them here.

Anyway we'll have a fine dinner out somewhere and see if we can make peace. Otherwise Pocatello's gonna really be pissed about losin' their fundraisin' librarian.

Say, what's the secret code to new babies? I just had a visit from my new grandson, seven weeks old and mewling and peeing in his mother's arms. But CUTE???!!!! Dang, ya never saw such cutitude!! To die for!! How come a kid of mebbe 13 pounds can melt down a whole room full of able bodies adults like that? Li'l fuzzy head and tiny fingers and wee lady-killing smile and twinkle of baby eye --- I swan, it is definitely more than any average grownup can resist. How do they DO that? But whatever the secret code is, ya gotta love 'em for using it on you.

Don't aim your barbarisms at me, amigo, but at Mister Dalyrymple (you can call him Are-by). He's the one who coined the line. Alternatively you may want to look up the word "still" to see if it has any OTHER definition than the one you were raised under.

My brother has my grandfather's personal still. We've even used it, in demonstrations, to distill water. It's very quiet, and except for the distillate dripping out would wouldn't even know that it was working. It's a family heirloom, and so we keep Grandpa's still still still.

Perch and rotate, Tern, tern, tern; Still dost thou bloviate Tern, tern, tern; A time to dog one another, A time to be a nerd; A time to look up A badly used word; A time to cavil, And a time to give up caviling.

It's all relative, Bunn. To an outside observer, it is possible that EVERY MOAB day should be considered a day of the Turkeys. Those of us in the inner circle know better, of course. But the PR situation could be a problem if anyone from the outside ever dared hurdle the barriers at the gate to MOAB...

Werner Heisenberg defined MOAB best when he said (in German), "It is not possible to know Mom at the same time you are Mom, because Mom is unknowable, and you can't be knowable and unknowable at the same time, since Des Carts or Sam Plato or somebody backaways said that we should know ourselves and my Dad, God bless his scummy old soul, said to me, "Werner," he said, "Werner, you just be yourself" and so we can't know ourselves and be ourselves at the same time and that's the same thing with Mom. Shakespeare, the Englishman, wrote, "To be...." and that's what we must satisfy ourselves with, saying to ourselves as we wander around the parks and streets, "To be to be to....""

I recommend that all MOABites catch a showing of Borat, the Kazakh in his current hit movie. It is the highest quality bullshit from glorious Eastern European country Kazhakistan. Very inspired by American bullshit. It is great!

Maybe, maybe not. But Heisenberg was absolutely certain in his uncertainty, wasn't he? And that's perhaps more or less a lot more than you can say for a lot of people, but not all of them. I dunno, though....

Does ol' Werner's Principle apply to time? I mean, I can understand why you can't know mass and location at the same time, but what about time? Is time another aspect of mass and energy? If so, can we undo mass/energy conversion, or do energy/time conversions?

(I have a little list of people I'd like to convert from mass to energy, but chemically, not on a nuclear level.)

Time bundles itself in the human mind like the cars of a slow freight, the instants insistently coupling as though they belonged together. This ridiculous behavior is almost as undignified as copulation. And just as addictive. The pretense of irreversibility is especially galling. Like the cascade of moments, they say the difference between a lightbulb and a pregnant nun is that the lightbulb can be unscrewed -- for Rapaire, unscrod.

You are tap dancing again, Rapaire; you post your question in the context of Essence of Time, and then rebut my answer on entirely specious grounds, making distinctions between the measures of the thing, instead of the dinglicheit, time qua time.

He went fencing in his mind, Leaving all his trials behind Drawing lines of Great Duration Guaranteeing separation From the boojums and the bogies Dragons with their breath like hoagies Wicked sprites like Farah Fawcett And other dark shapes from the closet. All of these his deep fears sensing Stand in need of decent fencing. Keep the dark side, foul and naughty Safely back in the South Forty Build your posts and string 'em clean Keeping back the spirits mean. And around your self-hearth's wicket Build a row of darling picket To defend from acid blogs, Colleague's snips, and passing dogs. Thus your garden will keep neat, And your temperament sweet, Social joys full recompensing Arduous dreams dispensed in fencing.

Gladys Rhumbleseat-WalkaboutDitties of the Inner Being Out Toronto, Hardly, Sootible and Ferrous 1969

Today...ah, today! Twin beds for the guest room are being delivered. "California" length beds, since everyone we know seems to be what Frank Lloyd Wright called "a weed." Shoved together they become a king-sized bed, but we would keep them apart because we don't want to encourage any sort of hanky-panky, do we?

This will create the second guest room (after we get sheets, of course). Pat has (again) vetoed my suggestion that we "westernize" the room with a moose or elk head and cowhides instead of blankets, with a floor lamp made from an old rifle between the beds. She just goes on and on about "good taste" and "over my dead body!".

Since the room's in the basement I thought a dungeon look -- shackles, an iron maiden, that sort of thing -- might be appropriate, but she said something about our friends "not being into that sort of thing." She also vetoed my idea about storing black powder and ammunition in the new guest room.

Now, all we have to do is get a new outside door and get the bathroom renovated a bit. Contributions (in US dollars) are welcome.

MOrning MOM there's gonna be a full house this weekend - the Kida are home from their European honeymoon and the nephew is bringing his girlfriend home for the week - though they are staying at the lake cottae there's no hot water - so we suspect they will be there only to sleep.